HistoryGrizzly

Personalized eh? Ohio State is pretty classy I guess. Odd that we haven't seen a single rejection result on the big ole' board. But I guess we are a fairly self-selecting group of people, so, it's not super surprising.

I'm taking the wussy way out. I'm emailing someone in the department I know.

Really? Well I suppose that's promising. Were rejections sent out via email or post office? I haven't checked my mailbox since last Friday. There's almost never anything in it except mail for my roommate. Ohio was a school I wasn't initially very excited about, but the more I thought about it, the more interested in it I became, and the more excited I became about the prospect of going there. Is your information from the Dept itself, or is this a supposition? (forgive my doubts, I'm playing everything very pessimistically right now, it's a self-defense mechanism)

Saw a few acceptances, and then a few people accepted for an MA who applied for a PhD. Don't know what to make of any of it. I'd kind of like to know soon though. I have to drive down to Bloomington to do some research at IU, and I'd like to kill two birds with one stone and meet with some people while I'm there, but I don't have the time to waste if I don't have a shot.

From your lips to the admissions committee's ears Ryan.

Got my first positive piece of news today. Email from the University of Nebraska (my fallback school) that I was recommended by the History Department for admission. No final word, and no word on funding yet (which is scarce), so nothing to get really excited about. Some schools will take anyone that'll write a check for tuition.

Got an email today saying I was recommended for admission at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Still nothing official, and no word on funding (it's for an MA program so, shot in the dark), so, nothing to get too excited about. Now I'm worried I wasted my broke car on this. I was hoping to save it for Michigan.

So my car broke down yesterday. To most people, that would be awful and a terrible thing to happen on top of the exigent stress from the application process. However, this is actually potentially fantastic news. Last October, my car was broken into and some stuff was stolen. The back window was smashed and it was just a mess. A couple nights after that happened, I had a dream that I won second place in the National PAT paper writing competition. The next day, I woke up and found out that I had won second place! (most people respond to that story by making fun of the fact that even in my dreams I can't fantasize about being #1 but oh well, even Dream Me is a realist) A few weeks after that, I was on my way to get my window fixed and on the way there, my engine exploded. I ended up having to get the engine replaced (it ended up being the lesser of two evils, the other evil being to junk it and buy a new car). A couple days later, I found out I won my university's Academic Achievement Award (sort of like undergrad of the year, it's really prestigious at my school). So, yesterday, my check engine light came on, and my brakes are about ready to go at any moment. Plus, last night I had a dream that someone called with an offer for a fully funded PhD program (the program was in English and not History, but, I'm going to assume that Dream Me simply misheard). I'm convinced this means that something good is going to happen in the next week. Anyone else believe in omens good or bad?

Ugh, I almost don't want to even know. I know it 's going to be a rejection (because it's where I want to go the most), and I feel like the longer I don't hear anything, the longer I can cocoon myself in a delusion of acceptance. Wow, I really have some sort of complex there.

Thanks for the head's up on Michigan. It's my number one choice, though it's quite a bit of a long shot. I'd love to be able to stay close to home AND there's a whole mess of profs there in my field.

I don't get some sort of pro-rating for only being an undergrad?

Aw no fair. I have to visit three archives in two different states for the project I'm working on right now for my American Studies senior project. I don't get props for it?

That's the way I think, because I'm a huge pessimist, however, it could be that you are waitlisted and they're just waiting to hear back from their main choices. It really never is totally over until you get the rejection letter. I've seen a few acceptance letters go out for Chicago, Indiana, and OSU, all of which I have an application at, and I'm downgraded my hopes to "Snowball's Chance in Hell" but I'm not totally giving up until I get the "We hate you" letter from them.

If you know for a fact that they've made the decision, I bet you could call the department directly and ask if you really want to know that badly. I'm trying to hold off on all communications to as many places as possible until I know for sure that admissions decisions have all pretty much been made, even at one school where a professor in their history dept. is actually a friend. On the other hand, if you know they've made the decision and you don't hear anything for awhile, I'd take it as bad news.

Congrats to the recent string of acceptances for people. This is all giving me a pretty bad feeling about my apps though. I've spent the last few hours dread thinking about contingencies for what looks like a really depressing string of rejections to come.

Out of curiosity, are the two people here who were invited for Penn European Hist. applicants, and do they do American separate from European? I was pretty much automatically considering myself rejected there anyway, but I'd like to know if I should go ahead and interpret that as semi-official. And the only thing I saw on Indiana was an Art History post on the results page. Art History is usually a separate department from History.

Any word on the American side of things?

I check the results page here once a day, and I check my email about the same as I always have. I figure when I see a flood of other people responding, I'll know it's time to start looking around. The LAST result probably won't come until March, so, might as well spend Feb. focusing on my last undergrad semester. With two rejections in hand, I think I'd really rather obsess over my research than this.

I'm taking my last 12 credits as an undergrad, and working on my third senior thesis (that's what happens when you essentially triple major), an analysis of how Upton Sinclair affected UAW organization at Ford in the late 1930s. I'm also revising one of my other senior theses for a PAT conference at Oakland U in March, and I'm trying to edit (in my spare time) two other major papers for possible journal submission. I'm sort of planning for the worst right now, and figuring if I get rejected from all grad schools this time around, I'd better start trying to get published now so that when this process comes around again in 9 months, I'm back and better than ever.

Yeesh, those Penn numbers don't bode well for me. I was worried somewhat about my fit there, and the only professor I really wanted to work with was Dr. Sugrue, who is perfect for what I want to do. But I'm not even sure if he's taking students right now. Applying was a long shot. Just found out today I was rejected from Northwestern, which brings my rejection pile to two out of nine, with the rest pending. I've also got a bad feeling about OSU. Two people here have already said they were admitted, and generally I feel like when people start to get admitted and you haven't heard something, it probably means you're on the outside looking in for a reason. There was one rejection for Chicago posted on the results page too, and one acceptance, but I haven't heard anything about them, so I have no idea how to take that. My top two are still alive though!

Rejected. I'm not super broken up about it. I wanted to go there obviously, but NW was always going to be a long shot, and my top two choices are still in play (though, they remain long shots as well). I'm not going to start freaking out until I get down to my last three apps or so. Vladimir - You were already accepted to OSU? I guess that doesn't bode well for those of us who applied but haven't heard anything. I'm starting to interpret other people's acceptance and my lack thereof as an automatic rejection, just that they take a lot longer to reject than accept. Oh well.

Applied to following schools for 20th C American, focus on Af-Am history, urban, labor history, and red scare Cold War history. PhD Michigan (top choice because of professors and proximity to family) UChicago Northwestern Penn Indiana U Illinois Rutgers - New Brunswick Ohio State MA Nebraska-Lincoln (only because UNL won't let you apply for a PhD without an MA) UG Double major in History and English, PolySci Minor, American Studies Concentration GPA: 3.59 Major: 3.8 (for history) GRE: V:690 Q:600 A: 5.0 (am I the only one who scored higher on V than Q?) Extras: University-wide Undergrad of the year. National Phi Alpha Theta paper prize runner-up. Smattering of other awards and honors societies.